dev-env

Rocky Linux dev container with GCC 14, CMake, Ninja, Valgrind, and Rust. Persistent shell history across sessions.

Usage

# Start a project
./dev.sh <project-dir>

# Shut down a project
./dev.sh --shutdown <project-dir>

Examples:

./dev.sh ~/projects/myapp     # mount ~/projects/myapp into the container
./dev.sh .                    # mount current directory

./dev.sh --shutdown ~/projects/myapp

On startup the script:

1. Starts the container (and any project-level services) detached
2. Opens VS Code attached to the container at the project path
3. Drops into an interactive shell

Project compose files

If your project has a docker-compose.yml, it is automatically merged into the session. Services share a network with the dev container, so you can reach them by service name (e.g. psql -h postgres).

Persistence

/home/dev/persist is a named Docker volume — shell history and anything else stored there survives container restarts.

Authentication

SSH keys

SSH agent from the host is forwarded into the container. Make sure your keys are added to the agent on the host:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

This is automatically done if you add to your ~/.bashrc:

eval $(ssh-agent -s)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 2>/dev/null || true

Git operations in the container will use your host's SSH keys. For full github CLI usage, add a PAT into your .bashrc/.zshrc as GITHUB_TOKEN=xxxxxxx. The CLI will be availabe in the container

Personal bashrc

~/.bashrc on the host is mounted as ~/.bashrc.personal inside the container and sourced at shell startup. Container settings take precedence.

MCP servers (Claude Code)

MCP servers run on the WSL2 host and are exposed to both the host and the container via mcp-proxy. dev.sh starts the proxy automatically, but you must do a one-time setup to register the servers with Claude Code.

How it works

mcp-servers.json        — defines stdio-based MCP servers (e.g. docker.exe mcp gateway run)
mcp-proxy.sh            — wraps them in an HTTP server on port 8808
~/.claude.json          — tells Claude Code where to find each server

• Claude Code on WSL2 reaches the proxy at http://localhost:8808
• Claude Code inside the container reaches it at http://host.docker.internal:8808

One-time setup

1. Add the servers to ~/.claude.json on the host:

# Used by Claude Code running inside the dev container
claude mcp add --scope user --transport sse docker-mcp-container \
  http://host.docker.internal:8808/servers/docker/sse

# Used by Claude Code running directly in WSL2
claude mcp add --scope user --transport sse docker-mcp-local \
  http://localhost:8808/servers/docker/sse

2. Verify the entries were written:

claude mcp list

You should see both docker-mcp-container and docker-mcp-local.

3. Set up the SessionStart hook so Claude Code auto-starts the proxy on WSL2 (add to ~/.claude/settings.json):

{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [
      {
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "test -f /home/<your-user>/dev_env/mcp-proxy.sh && { /home/<your-user>/dev_env/mcp-proxy.sh --status &>/dev/null || /home/<your-user>/dev_env/mcp-proxy.sh --bg; } || true"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Replace <your-user> with your WSL2 username. The test -f guard makes the hook a no-op inside the container (where the host path doesn't exist).

Adding a new MCP server

1. Add it to mcp-servers.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "docker": {
      "command": "docker.exe",
      "args": ["mcp", "gateway", "run"]
    },
    "my-server": {
      "command": "my-server-binary",
      "args": ["--flag"]
    }
  }
}

2. Restart the proxy:

./mcp-proxy.sh --stop && ./mcp-proxy.sh --bg

3. Register the new endpoint with Claude Code:

claude mcp add --scope user --transport sse my-server-container \
  http://host.docker.internal:8808/servers/my-server/sse

claude mcp add --scope user --transport sse my-server-local \
  http://localhost:8808/servers/my-server/sse

Manual proxy management

./mcp-proxy.sh --status   # check if running and list endpoints
./mcp-proxy.sh --bg       # start in background
./mcp-proxy.sh --stop     # stop
./mcp-proxy.sh            # start in foreground (for debugging)